Book review: the Mirror and the Light

Not really a book review: more a collection of thoughts. Spoiler: he dies in the end.

Title: "Wolf Hall" was good; "Bring up the Bodies" rather weak; TMATL is somewhere in between. About two thirds of the way through it is reveals as an epithet for Henry: the Mirror and the Light of Princes. "Mirror" (Speculum) as a concept seems to have faded; wiki offers me Speculum literature which says was inspired by the urge to encompass encyclopedic knowledge within a single work, but doesn't explain the "mirror" concept; I think it means in the sense that a mirror appears to contain the world. The "mirror of all Christian kings" sense is slightly different; here the image is more propagandistic; we think of holding up a mirror that reflects back the virtues we want to see? So a distorting mirror? It is a subtle phrase that somehow conveys a meaning it does not have. I was hoping for a more... interesting?... meaning to emerge; as the book progresses, Cromwell often reflects (ha!) on his life; images of light on the river are presented; but these don't connect to the title, alas.

As a book: as for WH and BUTB I enjoyed it; it is well written; a good story is told. About two thirds through I found myself bizarrely reminded of Tea in Space, in the sense that everything is so... serene. This is the character of Cromwell as drawn (as I noted in WH): he is a fixer, he can arrange all things (apart from Pole, I'll get to him), all things run smoothly when arranged by him and the tone of the narrative takes this on from him. Some things jar: eventually, the somewhat maudlin flashbacks become boring and skippable; for all her novelly talents she is not a poet and her attempts to rise to that don't work. The serenity extends oddly to the Pilgrimage of Grace: all the death occurs Oop North, with the man being invited to Windor for Christmas, for killing later.

In reviewing Wolf Hall I said that events, while terrible, at least got us the split from Rome, and that was good. I need to re-think that. Because: what I was thinking was that the separation of church and state was good. But of course, the split doesn't get us that. Instead, it produces a temporary solution to the conflict of temporal (local) power with (foreign) spiritual power by unifiying them locally; but this is no long-term solution and in a way just concentrates power, making things worse (from my viewpoint). The counter to that is that it probably did, globally, weaken religion, by making it harder to believe it made sense. I'm ignoring the reformation due to ignorance, of course.

This brings me to the character of Henry. The book presents him as Princely, though flawed. I can't tell if we are meant to see through that to the egotism and childishness underneath, which is presented implicitly; and if she doesn't make that explicit due to subtlety, or just because dissing Henry isn't quite done, he still has a reputation? During the book, he more and more agonises over his inability to have an heir, and being "cursed" for various imaginary sins, and his honour; and I wanted to slap him around the face and tell him to care about the real sins he's committed, like killing people. Because all the imaginary sins are so lawyerly and convoluted and designed in retrospect; and he appears so blind to the real problems¹. This seems plausible; he's been surrounded by people all his life who tell him he is right, he's not going to change now.

HM needs to explain Cromwell's downfall. She does this by presenting a series of possible explanations, in C's mind, as he turns over events. The one that seems most likely to me and which she plays well is C becoming too great, combined with H's own insecurity and overriding concern for his own magnificence. The Cleeves marriage was in my head as the folk-reason for C's downfall, but that gets de-emphasised in the book.

Before (mostly) reading TMATL I'd read Thomas Cromwell: A Life by Diarmaid MacCulloch. This is interesting, in the sense of containing much interesting information and interpretation, but actually rather dry despite his best efforts, so I rather struggled to get through it. That was some time ago so I've forgotten all the details, but I do recall him noting that H resented C doing any foreign relations, which brings me to...

Pole: in TMATL, Pole is a constant irritation, and C rather implausibly fails to deal with him. This doesn't feel right. But knowing little about this there's not much for me to say.

[Re-read spring 2023: and enjoyed again.]

Notes

1. The tone of this section is influenced by a conversation with Mfd. FWIW, Mfd considers that wittering on about this stuff (my words) is entirely likely, given the thinking of the time. And yes, I know the "real" sins probably would not appear sinful to him.